Book review: The Critical Humanism of the Frankfurt School as Social Critique

This book has much to offer anyone in search of a perspective on critical humanism and specifically on the humanist foundations of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Humanism has been the target of much criticism in recent years, especially in the context of posthumanism. The latter, of course, is not a single school of thought but in general it is defined in opposition to humanism. Then there is the older movement of transhumanism, though arguably this was a version of humanism, at least in the thought of Julian Huxley who coined the term (Huxley, 1957).

So, there is some value in reassessing humanism and especially in clarifying its critical intent. The notion of critical humanism has much going for it and it was this that attracted me to the book. Kozlarek's book begins with an attempt that in my view is unsuccessful to distinguish his conception of critical humanism from that of Ken Plummer in Critical Humanism: A Manifesto for the 2Ist Century (Plummer, 2021). He tries to show that Plummer has failed to break from discredited notions of humanism and that he makes too many concessions to posthumanism (it is implausible that he would have failed on these two contrary counts). In my view this is an incorrect reading of Plummer's book, which is a model of clarity and has put critical humanism on the intellectual agenda. Kozlarek sees his own approach to be a step beyond Plummer in a call for a more political kind of social research. In my reading of Plummer's book, that is partly what he does. However, Kozlarek is right on one point, namely that Plummer did not discuss the critical theory tradition and therefore failed to see one fruitful legacy upon which critical humanism can build. Both authors are agreed that humanism is already critical, with different intellectual traditions understanding that in different ways, as for example pragmatism and critical theory.

While the book begins on the wrong foot, as it were, by arguing against another work that advocates critical humanism, it does make a useful contribution when it comes to the so-called first generation of critical theory: Max Horkheimer, T. W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and Walter Benjamin. Before Kozlarek engages with these figures in dedicated chapters, there is a chapter on the ‘abolition of Man’ in modern sociology (p. 15). The term is Friedrich Tenbruck's – a conservative German sociologist in the Weberian tradition – whose lament in the early 1980s for the passing of the humanist foundations of sociology is taken too seriously. Sociology according to Tenbruck has distanced itself too much from the notion that human beings are ‘social beings’. It is not apparent to me that this is the case, for is it not the basis of the whole phenomenological tradition, which is far from dead? Then there is the position represented by Bruno Latour that we need to take into account the non-human world. Whatever one thinks of this – I do not think it requires the abandonment of humanism, as Latour argued – it is a valid critique of the overly social conception of the world that sociology and social science has traditionally worked with. I don’t find it helpful to read ‘how arbitrary (and absurd) everything has suddenly become’ (p. 45) just because something does not fit into the assumptions of humanism. It may indeed be the case that the Anthropocene turn has contradicted the older notions of humanity, but it also puts the category of humanity – the Anthropos – at the centre once again.

The ‘abolition of Man’ is given a central place in the book and it seems Kozlarek accepts much of Tenbruck's conservative diagnosis – a diagnosis that I think is not necessary for the argument that is later developed, as it does not lead towards a critical humanism but is a product of the German tradition of philosophical anthropology. In any case, the basic critique of humanism surely came from Heidegger in the Letter on Humanism (1947) (see Chernilo, 2017).

There are other claims made in this chapter that I find problematical and also unnecessary for the main aims of the book – for example, the assertion that there are just two kinds of theories of modernity: varieties of modernity as per Eisenstadt and postcolonial. Then there is a lament about the ultimate goal of neoliberalism as the ‘abolition of Man’. In general, Kozlarek sees much of contemporary thought as undermining Enlightenment humanism while disagreeing, in my view correctly, with those who see it as just Western ideology. Another target, which in my view should have been given more centrality, is those positions that see humanism superseded by posthumanism. He makes important critical observations about false or pseudo-humanism, as in notions of human capital, human wars, but perhaps goes too far in seeing humanitarianism as false. I find it odd there was no discussion aside from a passing mention on Sartre, given that he, within Marxism, made the most famous case for humanism – in Existentialism is a Humanism (1946) – and one that can be seen as critical and consistent with the rejection of the reductionist view of the human condition. The chapter has other reflections on humanism such as cosmopolitanism, the Anthropocene, postcolonialism. To my mind these reflections, which are very disconnected, would have worked better if they came after the main substance of the book on the Frankfurt School, since none of them amounts to a theory of critical humanism. Overall, I found this chapter lacking in focus and would have preferred an engagement with legacies of humanism.

Coming now to the main chapters of the book, I am much in agreement that the first generation of Frankfurt School theorists were humanists and that critical theory can be understood as critical humanism. Chapter 2 is on Horkheimer, who invoked most clearly humanist language. I agree that Horkheimer’s preoccupation with ‘Man’ was an expression of critical thinking. I agree too that he rejected the metaphysical idea of humanity as in philosophical anthropology. Chapter 3 is an interpretation of Marcuse as a humanist in the footsteps of the early Marx with his notion of humanity as a ‘species being’. Marcuse is perhaps the most clear-cut case in the critical theory tradition as a proponent of critical humanism. However, Kozlarek goes too far in following Marcuse with the claim that there is an urgent need for, in Marcuse's words, a ‘new type of Man, a different type of human being, with new needs, capable of finding a qualitatively different way of life, and of constructing a qualitatively different environment’ (p. 98). This strong notion of humanism – with its notion of a ‘new type of Man’ – seems to be at odds with the spirit of critical humanism, or at least in a relation of tension with ‘negative humanism’. Indeed, it seems to be something close to posthumanist techno-utopianism. The chapter ends abruptly with this problem unresolved. It is certainly an unresolved tension in Marcuse's thought.

The next chapter is on Erich Fromm, who like Marcuse was a strong proponent of humanism and derived his basic concepts from Freud and Marx. As Kozlarek shows, Fromm saw humanism as immanent in human nature. His variety of humanism was a ‘normative humanism’. Fromm's writings argued for a ‘new humanist science’, as in works such as Man for Himself (1949) in which he argued for ‘humanistic ethics’. Despite the now problematical language, with the archaic notion of ‘Man’, he saw humanism as the source of demands for a better quality of life, the care and protection of the natural environment. According to Kozlarek, Fromm while relying on a notion of human nature did not reduce humanism to an essence or posit the idea of the human being as ‘an abstract idea’. I might observe that there is nothing wrong with an essence and nor is there anything objectionable about something being abstract!

Chapter 5 is on Adorno, who predictably is a more complicated case since, unlike Fromm and Marcuse, he was less obviously a humanist and also, unlike Horkheimer, he did not use the term to the same extent. In fact, on one reading he could be seen as a critic of humanism with his claim that capitalist society was producing ‘a new type of Man’. However, as Kozlarek very well demonstrates in what is perhaps the best chapter of the book, Adorno was without doubt a humanist and one that was the contrary to the humanism of philosophical anthropology but also to Marcuse's humanism. Adorno was also a critic of Fromm, who broke from both Adorno and Horkheimer. Adorno believed that a humane world was possible. The Dialectic of Enlightenment is full of interesting remarks on ‘real humanity’ (p. 123). The theme of the book was the descent of humanity into barbarism, leading to a ‘loss of real humanity’. Adorno, like the other critical theorists, did not allow himself to be carried away by anti-humanism, for a notion of humanity was necessary to combat barbarism.

Kozlarek develops the case for critical humanism in a chapter on Benjamin, who is a more difficult figure than the others due to the elusive nature of his thought and because he did not use the language of humanism. At this point the reader is perplexed by the diversity of positions within the range of critical theorists discussed as all amounting to a commitment to critical humanism. What the book demonstrates is that they were critical humanists but in very different ways. Indeed, this is hardly surprising since, as often noted, the Frankfurt School was neither a school nor entirely based in Frankfurt, but a loose collection of theorists with quite different conceptions of critical theory. This suggests a weak overall commitment to critical humanism. There is also the problem that the notion of humanism in their writings meant different things, as for example in Fromm, Marcuse and Adorno.

Overall, a really central point in this book is that critical theory was about the critique of instrumental rationality and the dehumanization of the human being. The basic idea can be traced back to Kant, as Kozlarek argues, namely the idea that the human being is the measure of all things. This key idea, the foundation of humanism, has become lost with the trend in recent times towards a critique of the human being, even to its dismissal. The death of God led too quickly to the death of Humanity. Kozlarek is aware that this category of the human being does need to be broadened but not abandoned to include a wider reach, such as non-human life. The posthumanist turn – which is perhaps more a number of twists than a turn – has failed to address this important challenge and has remained too much concerned with the critique of the category of humanity.

The real contribution of the book, which in my estimation is significant, is to demonstrate the humanist foundations of critical theory and to cast this humanism in terms of critical humanism. Kozlarek confines the scope of the book to the first generation of critical theory. While I appreciate why he did this, there was scope to enlarge the compass to include the work of Honneth and Habermas, as I think they stand too in this tradition of critical humanism. Martin Jay has commented on Habermas's critical theory as a embodying a ‘humble reason that is not the equivalent to the self-assertion of a species-wide rational subject seeking to overcome or re-integrate the alienated otherness of nature or different cultures (Jay, 2016: 138). It would have been interesting to have seen more of his reflections on the later critical theory. Instead, the last full chapter of the book is on the work of a Latin American social theorist, Bolivar Echeverria. This chapter is interesting and informative to a reader unfamiliar with his work, but it is difficult to see the logic of the argument at this point. The key insight in bringing his work into the picture is to make a case for a conception of humanism that manifests itself through forms of life that resist inhuman conditions. The case is well made, but it could also be made in respect of recognition theory, which is also an aspiration towards a more humane society. It also illustrates a point that I think the author did not intend to make, namely that critical humanism is not confined to critical theory (see also Bakewell, 2023; Fassin, 2011).

Kozlarek wants to retain critical humanism as a framework or philosophy for critical social research; this is also clear from an earlier version of his thesis (Kozlarek, 2021) where he argues that critical humanism might be the basis of a programme of social research. But this may be asking too much. Setting aside the question of what exactly critical social research is today – I do not think it is specifically something founded on the ideas of the Frankfurt School – it would be very difficult to cast it as an application of critical humanism, which is a more general philosophical idea. I find it implausible that a philosophical position such as critical humanism could be a basis for empirical social research. How would (or even could) empirical social research be different even if researchers subscribed to it? What methodological implications would follow from critical humanism and which variant of it should be preferred? There is a danger here of confusing social theory with social research. However one should see that relationship, it is certainly not straightforward.

The book has the merit of making a compelling case for critical humanism, especially in relation to critical theory. More work is needed on clarifying critical humanism and its lineage from other varieties of humanism, such as liberal humanism.